"Cups" is a version of the 1931 Carter Family song "When I'm Gone", usually performed a cappella with a cup used to provide percussion, as in the cup game.[1] It was first performed this way in a YouTube video by Luisa Gerstein and Heloise Tunstall-Behrens as Lulu and The Lampshades[2] in 2009 (under the title "You're Gonna Miss Me").[3] Composition of the song is credited to A. P. Carter and Luisa Gerstein of Lulu and the Lampshades.[4][5]

Origin and release

The original song "When I'm Gone" was written by A. P. Carter, then recorded in 1931 by the Carter Family (not to be confused with their 1928 song "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?").[8] The song was reworked in 1937 by J. E. Mainer.[9] Over the years it has been recorded by many people including Mainer's Mountaineers and Charlie Monroe.[10] In 1940 it was released by Elizabeth Cotten. A vocalist and guitar player. It can also be heard in the film Dan in Real Life.

Lulu and the Lampshades were the first to perform the song using the cup game for percussion. Anna Burden[11] made her own version[12] of the Lulu on Youtube and the Lamspshades video[3] that was discovered by Reddit, and where Anna Kendrick learned the routine,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] prompting dozens of other Youtube users to submit cover versions of the song using the Cup Clap technique.[23] It was soon dubbed The Cup Song.[8][6]

The song is also used for the theme song for the BBC Two sitcom 'Mum' starring Lesley Manville.

Though the song had been popular online for years, mainstream success came when it was incorporated into the film Pitch Perfect in 2012. In the film it is performed by the main character, Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick) during an audition for a college a cappella group.[24] Unlike the soundtrack version, the single version of the song was re-produced with additional instrumentation (notably the banjo) by American Music Award-winning music producer Ali Dee Theodore, Jordan Yaeger and Harvey Mason, Jr.. The single version was extended by an additional minute.[25] Prior to the single's release, covers of the song as well as tutorials on how to do the song (using cups) went viral. Kendrick has stated that she learned the song and its cup percussion from watching and doing it many times on Reddit prior to being cast in Pitch Perfect, and it was therefore written into the film.[6]

Chart performance

Prior to the song's release as a single in March 2013, the song debuted at number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending January 12, 2013. Afterward, the single was released and the song began a slow but steady ascent up the chart. In its 32nd week on the chart, the song reached number 6, its peak position to date. By October 2013, all versions of the song had sold 2.5 million downloads in the US.[26]

On May 4, 2013, "Cups" returned to the top 50 of the ARIA Charts at a new peak of number 44, achieved in part due to the DVD of Pitch Perfect being released in Australia on April 13, 2013. It originally made it to number 48 in January 2013.

Music video

The song's music video was shot in the fourth week of March 2013, and it was directed by Pitch Perfect's director Jason Moore.[27] It was released on April 12, 2013 on Anna Kendrick's Vevo channel; as of February 2018, it has over 400 million views.[28]

It opens with Anna Kendrick in a restaurant's kitchen cutting dough into biscuits with a styrene-acrylonitrile pebbled tumbler,[29] while looking up longingly at some postcards of far-away places, such as Scotland and Paris, stuck to the refrigerator. She puts the biscuits in the oven, sets a timer, and dusts her hands off with an oscillating fan, before pausing a moment, and then starting the song using the cup on the table. In a long continuous shot, she washes her hands, takes a plate of food from the chef, and makes her way out into the dining area, where all the customers are drumming the cups in various ways. The camera then follows her singing while collecting dirty dishes and cleaning tables, before it pans around and back out wide, showing the entire diner synchronously doing the routine during the bridge section. It then cuts back to her walking back to the kitchen, passing the chef now drumming with a cup instead of wooden utensils, and follows back to her at the table. The timer rings as the song ends, and she looks back up, out towards the dining area where everyone is now normal, realizing it was all her imagination. Taking one last look at the chef, she smiles and exits through the back door.[28][30][31]